She Treads Softly: The Trouble With Harry

Sunday, August 23, 2009

The Trouble With Harry

1955

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast:

Edmund Gwenn - Captain Albert Wiles
Mildred Natwick - Miss Gravely

John Forsythe - Sam Marlowe
Shirley MacLaine - Jennifer Rogers
Jerry Mathers - Arnie Rogers

Composer: Bernard Herrmann

This is a humorous black comedy about a body and several people in a small New England town who think they may have had something to do with his death. The trouble with Harry is that he just won't stay buried. Several misunderstandings have Harry being buried and dug up repeatedly during one day while at the same time friendships flourish. The location shots are simple beautiful; without them The Trouble With Harry would more closely resemble a play. This was Bernard Herrmann's first musical score for Hitchcock. The cast is incredible. In the opening we see a young Jerry Mathers pre-Beaver days. The Trouble With Harry was Shirley MacLaine's debut film. We all found this a thoroughly enjoyable film and are sad that The Summer of Hitchcock has come to and end.

Thank you Amy at My Friend Amy for a totally enjoyable summer of films!

Quotes:

Capt. Wiles (Edmund Gwenn): [after Dr. Greenbow trips over the body] "Couldn't have had more people here if I'd sold tickets."
Capt. Wiles (Edmund Gwenn): [as he sees Sam Marlowe coming] "Next thing you know they'll be televising the whole thing."

[Discussing Jennifer's recently deceased husband Harry]
Jennifer Rogers (Shirley MacLaine): "You can stuff him, for all I care. Stuff him and put him in a glass case, only I'd suggest frosted glass."

Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe): "What did he do to you? Besides marry you."

No comments:

Post a Comment

John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.